Latest Posts

Stiff-necked

Published by

Last week I was reading the Daily Office.* (Hint to the non-liturgical: the Daily Office is not an e-newsletter about the five best ways to work from home.) There, as part of the tale of the Jews wandering for years in the desert, we find the Lord telling Moses to lead his people to the Promised Land. After saying he would send an angel ahead to drive out their enemies, God Almighty throws this rather peculiar curve ball: “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

Whew! It’s pretty bad when even God can’t stand to be around you! Think about how you would feel if the CEO told your manager to have your team complete some task, but then threw in, “But I’m not going to be there with you, because I’ll lose my cool just being around you stiff-necked people!”

Stiff-necked is a term I heard my Grandmother use. It is a rather old-fashioned way of saying someone is stubborn, or perhaps haughty. Merriam-Webster has more than thirty synonyms for stubborn, running from arrogant to uppity. There are more than forty verses in Judeo-Christian scripture criticizing the traits of a stiff-necked people: the hardened heart, the refusal to be led, the haughtiness of certainty. Dealing with stubbornness clearly frustrates even the most powerful forces in the universe.

Stubbornness is different than persistence. We need the latter to see things through. Yet the refusal to move beyond Plan A or Plan B, even when those plans have clearly failed, moves us from persistence to stubbornness. Too often we dig in our heels, even when evidence is presented to the contrary.

Perhaps there are more than forty verses criticizing the traits of the stiff-necked because it is such a universal condition.

The challenges of working through my own bouts with stubbornness were front of mind when our yoga teacher announced to our online class that we were going to focus on the healing practices of Throat Chakra.** With Amy’s guidance we worked through various poses and breathing practices to open up the throat and loosen up the neck (there it is again). I learned through additional study that the healing practices of Throat Chakra are important when you are imbalanced. In that state you may talk excessively to fill space and to project a sense of security that is inauthentic. You may sound full of confidence and in control, but in fact you struggle with feelings of disconnection and loneliness.

If there is one thing that the pandemic should teach us, it is that we don’t control all that much in our lives. When simply leaving our homes can endanger us, how much, realistically, do we control? Stephen R. Covey considered this question in his discussions about our personal Circle of Concern/Circle of Influence. Those who focus on things they can influence radiate positive energy, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. Reactive people, however, focus on things they cannot control or influence with results that include blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. Reactive people can be very stiff-necked.

We are at our most stubborn and inauthentic natures when we focus solely on ourselves. Stubbornness is clearly a trait to avoid for individuals. But with leaders, stubbornness can be toxic. It doesn’t matter what size team you lead, choosing to be stubborn, isolating, and without flexibility in a time of pandemic puts the focus on you and not on the productivity and well-being of your team.

So how do we get past the haughtiness of certainty and the toxicity of stubbornness? First, recognize that we each have a unique voice. That voice can be stubborn, isolating, accusatory, and full of certainty. Or it can be beautiful, supportive, inquisitive, and inclusive. Think of how you want to use your voice for the greater good. Excellent teachers and leaders also use their talents and tools to help others find their authentic voices. They instill courage in us and help us to develop our own strength.

Second, we need to nurture empathy, so that we are better equipped to appreciate the challenges others face. It is difficult to remain stubborn when you are empathetic to the needs of others. According to recent neuroscience, empathy is hardwired into all mammals. Our default — our authentic self — is to have the courage and strength to help others. In order not to help we have to actively suppress that urge. When we’re stubborn or stiff-necked, we’ve suppressed our authentic selves to focus on our needs and our grievances.

Empathy and helping others is at the heart of both leadership and humanness. Nurture that impulse. Otherwise, we become the type of stiff-necked person others want to avoid.

Have a good week.

More to come…

DJB

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

*I’ll admit that I am not a regular reader of the Daily Office, which sort of defeats the purpose of daily meditation. However, I dive in on occasion and take what wisdom I can find.

**Chakra, in Indian thought, is each of the centers of spiritual power in the human body, usually considered to be seven in number.

Saturday Soundtrack: Eric Skye

Published by
Eric Skye
Fretboard Journal #45 story on Eric Skye

Making my way through the most recent issue of the Fretboard Journal (FJ #45*), I came across sixteen splendid pages on fingerstyle guitarist Eric Skye. The photos of a beautiful twelve-fret 00-sized Santa Cruz guitar were sumptuous, and I was soon to learn that this was the company’s signature 00-Skye guitar. Likewise, the writing catches you right from the beginning, with a story — and quip — about using a wedding band as a slide. (“It’s why I got married, man!”)

Skye was new to me, but the Portland, Oregon-based acoustic guitarist certainly has a devoted following, and not just from Richard Hoover and the folks at Santa Cruz Guitars. He has a very broad minded approach to music, which he explains came in part from a classical guitar teacher who turned him on to blues and jazz as well. As his website notes, while often billed as an acoustic jazz guitarist,

“Skye actually occupies a unique niche between traditional acoustic music, modal jazz, folk, and blues. With a technical approach that is somewhat informed by studying classical guitar reluctantly in middle school, being obsessed with Jimmy Page, bluesy jazz guitarists like Kenny Burrell and Grant Green, as well as being exposed to the ‘California style’ of solo guitar playing from the Windham Hill label that was happening around him as a young person in the Bay Area. Later in life Skye became interested in Europe’s ECM label’s sound, with artist like Ralph Towner. And he is currently very interested in the ‘New Traditional’ music scene going on in New England today with young bluegrass players exploring a mix of folk and classical music with improvisational spirit. A lifetime of eclectic interests has led Eric Skye to have a fully realized and identifiable original style and sound.”

Skye’s videos are of a very high quality, thanks to the work of his videographer and friend Richard Newman, who makes the trip from Monterey, California, to Portland by car to capture Skye’s music. And thanks to their good work together, there’s much to sample online. Some jazz pieces, like Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man, find a new sound in Skye’s hands. The Skye original Blues for Freida, like all his tunes, blends wonderful technique and passion.

The Skye album A Different Kind Of Blue is a solo acoustic fingerstyle guitar re-imagining of the 1959 Miles Davis record Kind Of Blue. You can find Davis’s compositions So What and All Blues online to hear the result. This album reached the Top 10 in Acoustic Guitar‘s 2012 best records list and drew special acclamation from Davis’ estate and his son Erin.

Skye can also flatpick, as seen in his original reel Kathryn By The Delaware played here with Jamie Stillway. Check out their wonderful interplay beginning at the 2:25 mark. His take on the country blues classic Ode to Billie Joe has one of the funkiest grooves you’ll ever hear on a small-bodied acoustic guitar. He explains how he came to record the song in the FJ story:

“I loved the old video of Bobbie Gentry, the girl with the big hair and little guitar. Also it’s kind of modal, just a two-chord tune. You can certainly go down the rabbit hole.”

And while you’re watching and listening to these tunes (and searching for more), pay attention to the beautiful 00-Skye guitar, which Santa Cruz says is among their top-five most popular instruments.

OO-Skye

The gorgeous Last Day of Summer has Skye playing his signature model, with pictures of the guitar in production interspersed throughout the video.

This is great music to put on your playlist where you can turn to it when you want a warm, beautiful sound to envelop and sustain you. Enjoy!

More to come…

DJB

*Also known as Guitar Porn magazine

American Patriots

Published by
The American Cemetery at Normandy
The American Cemetery at Normandy

Today — May 8, 2020 — is the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe (or V-E) Day, when the allies accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. World War II was a time when the countries of the world came together to combat bigotry, racism, fascism and hatred. I had a father, uncles, and aunts who volunteered to serve, one of whom was at Normandy on D-Day. Many men and women made the ultimate sacrifice in those years. Yet all went to war because of what happened when xenophobia and demagoguery supplanted real leadership.

Last month we passed the 155th anniversary of the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army on April 9, 1865. The victory, while complete on the battlefield, was not capable of eradicating 250 years of racism. So we all soldier on for a better, more just world. Abraham Lincoln said it best when he spoke of the reasons for the Civil War — and our unfinished task as Americans — at the dedication of the Union cemetery at Gettysburg:

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

This nation fought two wars to combat bigotry, hatred, and enslavement of other humans. We won both wars at a terrible cost of life.

Real American patriots don’t gather in public spaces with paramilitary-level weapons intended to sow chaos and promote white nationalism, knowing full well that if people of color did the same, they would be immediately arrested. Real American leaders don’t normalize such activities, calling those who are involved “very good people.” Real American leaders don’t support those who promote intimidation and the threat of physical harm to stir up fear and feed rancor.

I am a son of the South, and yet my belief in this one point is deep and unwavering: Real American patriots don’t walk around flying Nazi and Confederate flags. Period.

More to come…

DJB

COVID-19 Claims the Life of the Last Surviving Monuments Woman

Published by
monuments-men-600x400
Motoko Fujishiro Huthwaite (center) at Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony for Monuments Men and Monuments Women

Motoko Fujishiro Huthwaite had — by any account — an amazing life.

Born in Boston on August 24, 1927 to Japanese citizens, her father was a prominent dentist and professor at Harvard. As noted on the Monuments Men Foundation website:

“The family was befriended by Langdon Warner, the legendary scholar of Asian art and future Monuments Man in Japan following the end of World War II. The Fujishiro household became the center of the Japanese community in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Japanese students, professors, and scholars from the many universities surrounding Boston would flock to parties expertly hosted by Motoko’s mother.”

She and her mother and brother were forced to relocate to Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, while her father was arrested for espionage and put into an internment camp. He later returned to Tokyo a broken man. Motoko survived the war and became one of 27 women who worked for the Arts and Monuments Commission — popularly known as the Monuments Men. After the war, she reinstated her United States citizenship, lived in both the U.S. and Japan, served as John D. Rockefeller III’s personal secretary on his trips to Japan, and had a rich and rewarding life.

Motoko Fujishiro Huthwaite died of COVID-19, on May 4th. As Robert M. Edsel, Chairman of the Monuments Men Foundation says in his tribute to Motoko,

“It is no small irony that this new war the world is waging against COVID-19 is taking place exactly seventy-five years after the end of the last world war, and that the people who are most susceptible are the heroes whose sacrifices helped build the world and all its freedoms that we enjoy today. To those who, shamefully, say, ‘Well, they were old; they would have died soon anyway,’ I have this response: ‘You have never known, as we have, the mettle and dignity of these aged warriors. Their loss is society’s loss. Their loss is your loss, for they take with them knowledge and virtue our nation, in fact the world, needs now more than ever. They are our nation’s treasures, and we should protect them accordingly.’”

Thank you for your service to the country and the cultural heritage of the world, Motoko Fujishiro Huthwaite. May you rest in peace.

More to come.

DJB

Belonging

Published by
Puzzle Image by Clker-Free-Vector Images from Pixabay

During this pandemic, many of us are feeling vulnerable. Some may be wondering if or where we belong in a world that has dramatically changed.

Brené Brown says that our belonging to each other can’t be lost, but it can be forgotten. She came to understand the simple yet profound answer to the question of the difference between fitting in and belonging out of a conversation with a group of middle school students. “Fitting in is when you want to be a part of something” they explained. “Belonging is when others want you.”

With my background, Brené Brown’s thoughts on vulnerability and belonging led me to think about history, storytelling, and our use of selective memory to keep others out of our narrative, to ensure they don’t belong. If we confront our feelings during this pandemic, we may come to realize the ways that we have made others feel vulnerable in the past, perhaps by omitting or erasing their stories as if they don’t belong.

History isn’t what happened. It is a story about what happened. Those stories are often intertwined with place. In the study of history we learn that the one who tells the story controls the narrative. Whether intentionally or not, the storyteller may omit key details or confuse the context. Thanks to selective memory, a richer, layered history — someone’s story — is erased and forgotten.

All of a sudden, they don’t belong.

I was thinking of forgotten or erased history and the idea of belonging when considering the origin story of my wife’s family. Everyone has an origin story and many revolve around places. But what happens when someone erases you out of the story?

A cousin sent my wife, Candice, an article entitled Once More to the Old Barn about the indoor training facility for runners at Lincroft, New Jersey’s Christian Brothers Academy (CBA). The training facility is in an oval barn, or galloping shed, constructed in 1926 by the Whitney family of New York at their Greentree Stable farm. This unusual structure provided a space for the thoroughbred racehorses to train during the brutal winter months. CBA bought the property in 1958. And just like the racehorses, the runners at CBA found that having an indoor training facility led to championship outcomes.

So far, so good. The problem is that CBA, in its online history and in stories like the one above, glosses over the fact that the school did not buy the farm from the Whitneys. And why not? Donors and alumni will want to hear of the school’s connection to a wealthy and famous family, and the Whitneys did build the oval barn. CBA also mentions that the well-known cardiologist and running guru George Sheehan was a key factor in ensuring the sale took place. That story, however, leaves out a family that has meaning in our personal history, as well as the reason that Dr. Sheehan had connections to this particular property. That family belongs in the story.

The farm where CBA now sits was known at the time of the 1958 sale as JC Farms. Candice’s maternal grandfather, Charles Valentine Holsey (the C in the name), along with his oldest son, Joseph Holsey (the J), bought the farm in 1949 from a Mrs. Sherman, who had purchased it from the Whitney family. Mrs. Sherman did not retain ownership for long. As a Jew, she felt unwelcomed in the Lincroft community, so she sold the property to the Holseys.* JC Farms remained in the Holsey family for almost a decade until it was sold to CBA. Most importantly from our personal history, it is where my future father-in-law met the young woman who would become his wife, my wife’s mother, and my mother-in-law.

The Holseys — including a young Irene Ann Holsey — lived at JC Farms, where they stabled and trained their own horses. They would also rent out stables for others looking to race at nearby Monmouth Park when the track’s stables were full. One of the horsemen who came looking for space was Joseph J. Colando of Point-of-View Farm in Yardley, Pennsylvania, along with his son Andrew, a young equine veterinarian recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Colando was training his father’s horses, including the improbably named Uncle Miltie, and they rented stables at JC Farms so their horses could run at Monmouth Park. Dr. Colando met Irene Holsey while training at the farm and in 1950 they were married. Candice was born in 1951, the year Uncle Miltie was an early Kentucky Derby favorite. LIFE magazine took pictures of the horse in anticipation of a significant Derby-related story.** But Uncle Miltie came up sore, finished 8th in the Wood Memorial, and was subsequently pulled from the Derby field.

Candice has fond memories of JC Farms as a child, and we have heirlooms that date to the family’s ownership. And it was the Holsey connection that brings Dr. Sheehan into this story. His sister, Lorretto Sheehan, married William Holsey and they were known to my wife and all the family as Uncle Billy and Aunt Honey. Both were full of life, and I fondly remember Billy and Honey dancing the night away at our wedding. George Sheehan — it turns out — very likely knew of the property through the Holsey family.

I had the same feeling of erasure of history with a house connected to my family. When the Heritage Foundation in Franklin, Tennessee bought a house on Second Avenue just before it was to be demolished, they recognized it as the Bearden-Brown House. Bearden was my grandmother’s maiden name and she married George Brown. They lived here for a number of years. It is the house in Franklin where I went to visit my grandparents until my grandmother came to live with us several years after Granddaddy died. But the family that bought it, and did a wonderful job of restoration, decided they wanted to add their name to the house…so they just dropped the Brown and suddenly it became the Bearden Robertson House. Just like that, decades of Brown-family connections to the property disappeared.

As forgotten histories go, CBA’s gentle erasure of Mrs. Sherman and the Holsey family connections to their historic campus isn’t overly egregious. And the Robertsons were certainly justified in wanting their part of the story attached to my grandmother’s house. The storytellers have decided that these other eras don’t fit in their narratives. That decision doesn’t, of course, erase the family’s memories, but it does disconnect the written histories of these places from the families who cared for them for years.

Erasure in history is much more serious when it is intentional and comes with an agenda to distort a story. That intentionality in our nation’s past comes into play in dealing with those often seen on the margins of life. Selective memory is used to forget about all those who truly belong. It took institutions like New York City’s Tenement Museum to tell a fuller, richer, layered history of the millions of people who moved to and around the United States in pursuit of the American Dream.

Four decades after beginning my work in historic preservation, the effort to tell the full story in the places where it happened has expanded in countless ways. Yet there is still much to do.

Places connect with our lives through emotions and memories. Old places always have countless personal stories intertwined with the wood, brick, stone, and mortar; stories holding these places up, literally and figuratively, embedding the connections from the past into our lives today and in the future. Stories such as the one about a place where a family that originally immigrated from Ireland joined with another family that had its roots in Italy, to make a new life in the United States.

Those narratives should not be erased simply because it is inconvenient to tell the full story, or because we want to elevate only those who have wealth and fame. In the end, we’re all richer for understanding those connections and how ordinary places are nothing but extraordinary.

Have a good week.

More to come…

DJB

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay.

*The update on the ownership by Mrs. Sherman was provided by my mother-in-law after the original story was posted.

**The pictures in the body of this post of Uncle Miltie are from the LIFE photo shoot. Instead of a major Derby-related spread, the magazine published a small article commenting about the horse’s unusual name. (Uncle Miltie was the nickname for popular comedian Milton Berle). My mother-in-law still has many of the stunning photographic prints from the shoot in her possession.

Saturday Soundtrack: John Hiatt

Published by
John Hiatt from JohnHiattmusic
John Hiatt (photo credit @JohnHiattMusic)

One of my all-time favorite rock singer-songwriters is John Hiatt. Described as “a master lyricist and satirical storyteller,” Hiatt “weaves hidden plot twists into fictional tales ranging in topics including redemption, relationships, growing older and surrendering, on his terms.”

Hiatt has been at this for a long-time, with 23 albums to his credit. His songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt (Thing Called Love), Emmylou Harris, Iggy Pop, I’m With Her, Rosanne Cash (The Way We Make A Broken Heart), and New Grass Revival and the Jeff Healey Band (both for Angel Eyes).

The acoustic Crossing Muddy Water shows how Hiatt can tell a sad tale of loss with beauty and depth. Perfectly Good Guitar about rock stars who smash their very expensive guitars onstage as part of their act is typical of Hiatt’s clever writing. This version from Austin City Limits has great leads with Mike Ward of The Guilty Dogs doing some awesome guitar shredding.

My all-time favorite Hiatt song is Tennessee Plates, described by one of my favorite music bloggers as “probably the most oblique and powerful tribute song to Elvis Presley ever composed.” You may recall the tune from when it was featured in the iconic film, Thelma and Louise. But rather than reading my thoughts, please take some time to mosey over to Thom Hickey’s fantastic The Immortal Jukebox (I’ll still be here when you return) and read his in-depth take on what Thom describes as:

“A complete movie with; a love story, criminality, cultural commentary, eyeballs out playing from the band (especially Sonny Landreth on guitar) and a twist at the end – all in under three minutes.”

Now that you’re back, let’s end with Hiatt’s anthem that seems so appropriate for these times: Have a Little Faith in Me. And for this version, Hiatt improves on the original by adding that gospel choir at the end!

“When the road gets dark / And you can no longer see

Just let my love throw a spark / And have a little faith in me

And when the tears you cry / Are all you can believe

Just give these loving arms a try, baby /And have a little faith in me

Hiatt and another singer-songwriter legend, Lyle Lovett, were scheduled to play at Strathmore Music Hall in Bethesda on May 13th, but due to the coronavirus crisis the entire tour was cancelled. For now we’ll have to be content with videos and memories of their last area concert on what I call, “the last full day of sanity in the United States.”

Enjoy!

More to come…

DJB

Beyond the pandemic

Published by

To no one’s surprise, nostalgia is very much in vogue in the middle of this pandemic. That’s understandable. Psychologists say that experiencing distress, or “negative mood” is a very common trigger of nostalgia. As a temporary reprieve from the pressures of the present world, these past happy memories can be a helpful coping device.

But as a long-term strategy for getting through and — more importantly — thriving on the other side of the pandemic, nostalgia alone will not be enough. With past pandemics and crises as a guide, the world never goes back to the old way of doing things after such a shock to the system. As someone whose entire career has focused on ensuring that history is part of our present and future, I want to make certain that we don’t discount the past. But this pandemic will require that we adjust to the reality of inevitable change.

We can adjust, becoming more effective in our jobs and in life while also promoting our cognitive health, by embracing enthusiastic learning during and after this crisis. Which brings me to my yoga practice.

Let me say upfront that I’m not very good at yoga. Yet.

I can pretty much nail the basics of the corpse pose — which involves lying flat on one’s back and breathing — but even something so simple has multiple layers and levels of understanding. I’m sure that with just about every other pose and movement, I have something misplaced or out of alignment. And I know that I’m breathing in all the wrong places, if I even remember to breathe at all. Yet, I’ve come to realize that I’m learning a whole different set of lessons from yoga than the things I would have expected. Lessons I can apply in this time of crisis.

I have, of course, learned about mindfulness and flexibility. That was my intention, and it is what many individuals reference when discussing the benefits of their yoga practice.

But more importantly, I’ve learned to let go, make mistakes, and not really care that I am doing my poor imitation of a yoga pose in a studio full of flexible, mindful people, many of whom have forgotten more than I’ll ever know. I am reminded, again, of the value of always trying new things without worrying about competence or skill or the judgment of others.

My colleague and friend Andi Stevenson has an insightful TEDx talk entitled The Importance of Being a Rookie. She reminds us that while we rightly enjoy being talented and competent at our jobs and hobbies, “We can’t overlook the value of being absolutely terrible at something new. Inspiration, innovation and joy come from hurling ourselves into new challenges and embracing the role of rookie: an enthusiastic, humble, undaunted learner.”

Being a rookie, from Andi’s perspective:

  • kills perfectionism,
  • increases empathy,
  • changes our approach to the new and difficult, and
  • helps you find what saves your soul.

These are all spot on, and I encourage you to watch the entire talk to hear her explanations. Once we try something new, we are open to other experiences where we may not have knowledge, expertise, or mastery. And that’s a good thing for our growth and well-being. My example of being a rookie is my yoga practice. What was Andi’s? Well, she took her competent, Type-A, executive, nerd personality to a class where she had to wear spangled dresses — with so many sequins and so much beading that “you could see it from space” — and learn ballroom dancing. I can’t imagine…but that’s her point. It was totally new, frightening, challenging, and ultimately life changing.

As I advanced in my career I became better at what I did and took on more responsibility. I also took on more concerns that I present myself as knowledgeable, competent, and professional. One way to do that is to stop trying new things while continuing to hone the skills one’s already acquired. Yet pushing back against learning new things will make life more of a challenge as we come through the coronavirus crisis.

Our lives will be different individually and in our communities, and there are already predictions as to what that new way of living will entail. On a personal level, we may adjust our thinking about how and where we live. Families may decide to drop the current, never-ending push for more activities and reclaim their weekends.* In our professional lives, we will think differently about remote work. Jobs and businesses that once existed will be gone, while new jobs and new business opportunities will begin to grow. As a nation, perhaps we’ll come to see child-care as an essential need and we’ll recognize teachers and nurses for the amazing professionals they are, while undertaking the hard work to make those changes stick. I hope we’ll take voting more seriously because we see government as something helpful rather than part of the problem.

Some will, no doubt, be nostalgic, trying to hold on to their old way of doing things and their old privileges. But like the owners of the buggy whip factories of the late 19th century, they will fail. To successfully navigate this new reality, we need to be willing to be an enthusiastic learner. As I’ve seen through my yoga practice, we lose so much by not trying new things where we may feel uncomfortable or are not very good (yet). With yoga, once I got passed those concerns and met two insightful and patient teachers in Michele Russ and Amy Dixon, I found I really enjoyed the practice, at whatever level I’m capable of at the moment. During this time of sheltering-in-place, my thirty minutes of daily practice — before coffee or electronics or anything else in the morning — has helped center my day. And I still see Michele and Amy to get the benefit of their wisdom, only now it comes online.

The writer Ursula K. Le Guin notes in No Time to Spare that there are people who, in her words, realize the incredible amount we learn “between our birthday and our last day.” If we are flexible enough in mind and spirit to recognize “how rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn,” we can maintain the seeking, trusting capacity for learning and life that we had as a two-year-old.

In this time when everything has changed, why not consider embracing your inner student or your inner rookie, as Andi calls it. Use this time to cultivate a sense of wonder. We are going to need new ways of addressing the problems of our families, organizations, businesses, and country. This is as good a time as any to become an enthusiastic learner.

Stay safe, well, and resilient this week.

More to come.

DJB

*It was Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, who said, “Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.”

Images by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The elegant swing of Teddy Wilson

Published by

For the final Saturday Soundtrack post of April, I’m going to recognize Jazz Appreciation Month by highlighting my father’s favorite jazz musician: the elegant pianist Teddy Wilson.

Wilson was born in 1912 in Austin, Texas, but moved at age six with his parents to the famed Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. His father was the head of the English Department while his mother later became the school’s head librarian. Wilson began his musical instruction at Tuskegee, where he studied not only the piano, but also violin, oboe, and clarinet. Around 1930, when playing music in Toledo, Ohio, Wilson met the great Art Tatum and the two played together often during that period. Wilson eventually moved to New York City, with the encouragement of jazz supporter John Hammond, and went on to join Benny Goodman‘s band. It was with Goodman and drummer Gene Krupa that Wilson became the first African American to play in a racially mixed, high profile musical group in the United States. Wilson performed with Goodman, off and on, for many years, including for his famous Carnegie Hall Concert of January 16th, 1938, which was called, “the most important concert in jazz history,” by Phil Schaap, curator of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Schaap produced the Columbia Records album reissue of the 1938 concert and says the event – with no dancing and no booze — elevated jazz to an art form.

“Outside of music, the concert was culturally historic. In 1938, music venues were segregated. But Goodman took more than half a dozen African American musicians with him onto the Carnegie Hall stage, including pianists Teddy Wilson and Count Basie, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and saxophonist Lester Young. Benny Goodman made a stand for integration onstage nine years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball.”

My father —  Tom Brown — loved Wilson’s style, which has been described as “understated, self-assured, cool, controlled, elegant.” Daddy passed that love onto me, and one of my great musical memories is hearing Teddy Wilson live with his trio in an Atlanta jazz club in 1980. One of the sides in my father’s collection of 78 RPM records is Wilson, on solo piano, playing the classic Body and Soul. That was one of the few tunes my father could play on the piano, so when I listen to this memories flood my heart.

Wilson’s playing with Goodman is on another planet. Listen to this group, in their prime in 1937, play I Got a Heartful of Music.

Oh my! These guys are in overdrive! Channeling his mentor Art Tatum, Wilson’s amazing solo takes off at the :30 mark, and those big hands go racing up and down the keyboard, with the bass lines in walking tenths (except they are running here)! When the quartet (Lionel Hampton on vibes) made this 1972 recording (with George Duvivier on bass) of Avalon, they were older and some were semi-retired, but nonetheless this group can still swing. Wilson’s cool solo begins at the 2:20 mark. From that same concert, listen to the group play their hit Moonglow.

Many commentators have noted that the great jazz singer Billie Holiday did some of her best work when backed by Teddy Wilson on the piano. From 1937, here’s I’ll Never Be the Same which has an extended Wilson introduction. More Than You Know is another classic from this period, showing Wilson’s understated, but perfect, accompaniment. His solo begins around the 1:25 mark. One of Holiday’s signature songs, I Cried for You, was recorded in 1936 with the Teddy Wilson Orchestra.

In 1963, Wilson played a concert at Chicago’s Civic Opera House with Jim Atlas on bass and Jo Jones on drums, and the three have some amazing interplay on Honeysuckle Rose. And since it was another of the songs my father could play on the piano, I’ll end with Wilson’s rendition of St. Louis Blues from a concert in Copenhagen with the Teddy Wilson Trio, featuring drummer Ed Thigpen and the Danish bassist Hugo Rasmussen.

Since we can’t go out and hear live music, this is the perfect time to pull up a swing playlist on your electronic device and take yourself back to the 1930s and 40s. Teddy Wilson will certainly be there!

Enjoy!

More to come.

DJB

Image: The cover of my father’s set of Teddy Wilson 78 RPM records on Columbia Records

Responsibility

Published by

Responsibility has been in the news lately.

In a time of never-ending obfuscation, gaslighting, spitefulness, and mendacity, it seems appropriate to return to the plain spoken wisdom of Harry Truman.* President Truman had a sign on his desk in the Oval Office that simply said, “The buck stops here.” Truman received the sign as a gift and only kept it on his desk for a short period of time, but the message and image stuck with him for the rest of his life.

Truman was saying that he was responsible. There is no need to blame anyone else for this. I own the issue.

Responsibility has always been at the heart of leadership because it is inherently focused on others as opposed to self-preservation. Truman is just one example, but there are many others in our country’s history. There are famous individuals who regularly took responsibility for their actions — such as Roger Williams, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, A. Philip Randolph, and General Dwight Eisenhower — just as there are millions of less famous examples we can turn to. Individuals such as the soldiers who charged up Utah Beach and Omaha Beach at Normandy on D-Day, accepting responsibility to rid the world of an especially horrible example of bigotry, xenophobia, demagoguery, and fascism.

History doesn’t look kindly on people in positions of power who refuse to accept responsibility for their actions. Historian Joseph J. Ellis has described Thomas Jefferson as someone “who combined great depth with great shallowness, massive learning with extraordinary naivete, piercing insights into others with daunting powers of self-deception.” Jefferson famously wrote of slavery, “We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.” Emancipations by well-known figures of the era such as Robert Carter, Edward Coles, and Richard Randolph (Jefferson’s cousin), as well as hundreds of property owners forgotten to history, show, however, that Jefferson abdicated responsibility. In reality, he was not looking for an answer to the question of what happens once the slaves are freed.

When we blame someone else or outside events for our situation, we are focusing on protecting ourselves and passing the buck. And when we do so, blame becomes part of our language and part of our culture. As leadership consultant Dan Norenberg wrote on the topic, “When blame becomes prevalent…you see the following:

  • Problems don’t get solved
  • Mistrust replaces trust
  • Collaboration suffers as people start working against each other rather than with each other.”

Unfortunately, we have an individual in the White House who came into the office blaming others: immigrants, the previous administration, bureaucrats, foreign governments, our allies…the list is almost endless. Thus it has always been with Donald Trump, who through a checkered business career never took responsibility for multiple bankruptcies and failures. Blaming someone else wasn’t a bug of his campaign, it was a key feature. It is reactionary politics, which as legal- and social-policy writer Stephen L. Carter noted in another context, is “designed to bypass the rational faculties of its targets.”

Refusing to take responsibility is about the “me” instead of the “we.” True, virtually every successful politician is preoccupied with his or her own feelings, interests, or situation. That’s natural. In watching the Ken Burns documentary The Roosevelts: An Intimate History on PBS during the pandemic, I’ve seen how even those who are preoccupied with self can still accept responsibility. One would be hard-pressed to find two more self-absorbed individuals than Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. Alice Roosevelt Longsworth’s famous quote about her father, Teddy, sums it up nicely: “My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.” Yet both men worked through difficult personal traumas, were aware of the needs of their fellow citizens, and they acted on that awareness. Their “me” turned into a “we” and the country was transformed for the better.**

Recently, the citizens of our country and, in fact, the world have — by and large — accepted responsibility for each other. We have set aside our own wants and needs so the most vulnerable among us wouldn’t die a preventable death. We don’t know the people who will be saved by our sheltering in place, but we are taking those actions in any event because we are accepting responsibility for the well-being of our fellow citizens. As an anonymous author recently wrote:

“When you go out and see the empty streets, the empty stadiums, the empty train platforms, don’t say to yourself, ‘It looks like the end of the world.’ What you’re seeing is love in action. What you’re seeing, in that negative space, is how much we do care for each other, for our grandparents, for the immuno-compromised brothers and sisters, for people we will never meet.

People will lose jobs over this. Some will lose their businesses. And some will lose their lives. All the more reason to take a moment, when you’re out on your walk, or on your way to the store, or just watching the news, to look into the emptiness and marvel at all of that love.

Let it fill and sustain you. It isn’t the end of the world. It is the most remarkable act of global solidarity we may ever witness.”

Donald Trump has consistently stated that he doesn’t accept responsibility. To a greater degree, the president and those trying to shield him from political accountability are even more upset when others accept responsibility by their actions to stay at home. It is not surprising, but just another in an ever-growing list of examples of the leadership vacuum in the White House and in today’s Republican Party, that — it saddens me to say — has turned itself into a cult devoted to obtaining and maintaining power.

Stephen L. Carter noted in a 2012 interview that, “Democracy cannot flourish when electoral politics is exalted above all things. The entire point of the concern for civil society is that a successful nation needs its people to be focused on matters more important than transitory partisan advantage.”

We now face an existential crisis in a global pandemic. We also have a growing economic crisis and a long-simmering crisis around whether our democracy will survive. It is time for our leaders to take responsibility for something more than transitory partisan advantage. To focus on the “we the people” instead of on “me and mine.” Or it is time they give up — or more likely be relieved of — their positions of power.

Be responsible. Live with a generous and loving mindset. Stay safe and stay healthy this week.

More to come…
DJB

*I’ve quoted Truman recently in another post. And yes, I realize this sentence isn’t a good example of plain speaking. So if you are wondering, I’m speaking of a time of cover ups, psychological manipulation, meanness, and lying.

**Teddy Roosevelt lost his mother and wife on the same day — Valentine’s Day in 1884 —and Franklin Roosevelt contracted polio at age 39.

Sara Watkins

Published by
Red Wing 07 11 15 056
Sara Watkins at 2015 Red Wing Roots Music Festival

Today, I’m wrapping up my Saturday Soundtrack feature on the three members of the roots music trio I’m With Her with this look at the gifted fiddler, singer, and songwriter Sara Watkins.

Watkins is probably the best known of the trio’s members, due to her status as a founder and fiddler with the Grammy-award-winning and highly influential progressive bluegrass group Nickel Creek, where she debuted in 1989 along with her brother Sean and mandolinist Chris Thile. Since 2007, when the band took an indefinite hiatus (broken by 2014’s 25th reunion tour), Watkins has played both solo gigs and in a variety of groups including, of course, I’m With Her. In addition to singing and playing fiddle, she also plays ukulele and guitar, and played percussion while touring with The Decemberists. With her brother Sean, Sara has also hosted the Watkins Family Hour, which has been described as an “oasis from the rigors of the road, a laboratory where they can try out new material, or master beloved cover songs.” The monthly show is held at the Largo in Los Angeles and it has been hailed as a convivial, communal event where they welcome an impressive array of musician friends old and new.

Watkins has a wide range of musical interests. Let’s begin with something completely different — the rocker/murder ballad Hayloft from Nickel Creek’s reunion tour. With the lyrics, “My daddy’s got a gun / you better run…” you can guess the subject matter. Thile described Hayloft as like a “Gatorade shower” on the listener, and reviewers note that in the hands of Nickel Creek this oddity becomes a romp with chops.

Another rocker/ballad (if that’s a genre) is her Young in All the Wrong Ways from the 2016 solo album of the same name.

Watkins can still sing straight-ahead bluegrass, as seen in this live version of Hold Whatcha Got with the great Mark Schatz on the bass. (Well, this version is as straight ahead as the Nickel Creek folks can play it.) One of my favorite Watkins performances is her version of John Hartford‘s Long Hot Summer Day, first as a fiddle/vocal solo and then in a version with Nickel Creek. The Watkins Family Hour Tiny Desk Concert from 2015 has a surprise appearance by singer Fiona Apple, who howls a bit on In the Pines, sounding as if she just walked down from the North Georgia mountains to join in the Saturday night party.

In her response to the Chris Thile challenge to record a song from her house for the Live from Home performance series, Sara Watkins offers up a lovely Iris DeMent tune, Sweet is the Melody. No one knows when musicians and bands will begin touring again, but note that the Watkins Family Hour was to be performing at Ram’s Head on April 29th, and at Sixth & I in DC on April 30th. Both shows have been postponed, so check their websites for updates.

Until we can get out to hear some live music, enjoy the videos and stay safe!

More to come…

DJB

Click on these links to check out the features on the other two members of I’m With Her:  Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan.